


The Idle Hours

by orphan_account



Series: Odd Couple [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Class Differences, Fluff, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:44:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first pregnancy is full of uncertainty, excitement and fear.  David and Tobin make an excellent team, but even the strongest partners spend time apart and it's amazing the things one thinks about in the lonely hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. David

**Author's Note:**

> For all of my lovely readers, here's the next installment of The Odd Couple series. I wanted to take a look at what our boys think about with a new baby on the way when they have some time to themselves...and how that changes when they're together again.

THE IDLE HOURS  
CHAPTER ONE: David

The sterile air down in David’s clean basement laboratory was still and quiet, seeming to swallow the very sound from the air.  Everything down here ran like clockwork.  There was a low hum from the refrigerator units that dominated the back walls under the white glow of his energy-efficient L.E.D bulbs.  He found the sound monotonous, yet soothing.  Normally he played loud music down here, but he’d not really felt like it lately.  After all, he’d been reading a lot of child development books and none of them could agree on what music was best for a foetus, so he just didn’t bother at all.  So there he sat, working in the brightly lit, calming, droning monotony of his lab.

David was perched on a stool at one of his high work-benches, a few petri dishes spread out in front of him.  It wasn’t any terribly interesting work since he’d promised Tobin that he wouldn’t work with any of the really toxic viral strains until he wasn’t carrying their little bundle of joy anymore.  He’d put up a fuss about it for the sake of being stubborn, but he was actually a little bit relieved, glad that he had Tobin around to be sensible for him now that he had something like THIS to worry about.  No, for the moment he was working on one or two cases for the hospital, just looking over some cultures from patients who were having a bit of trouble with his pre-existing vaccines.  He’d been commissioned to find out what kept them from being able to use the vaccines and create an alternative.

It was busy work, but David liked being busy.  It kept him from thinking too hard about things that didn’t need to be thought about.

The Alpha had always been boggled by his body’s ability to do something that only ten percent of his designation was capable of, but he never once regretted it.  How could he? How could he regret something that made his mate so happy? Tobin was as taciturn and churlish as ever (David would be concerned if he wasn’t), but there was something new about their dynamic…something more.  There was a new way that his lover touched him, something that looked like pride in his eyes and something that felt like possession in his hands.  It made David feel satisfied with himself, like he was good enough for once. 

Before in his life, he had never been good enough.  Design a brand new vaccine that had delivered a third world country from certain doom? Wasn’t good enough.  Revolutionize cancer medication so that it was affordable for proletarians and elite alike? Wholly unnecessary.  No matter how hard he’d worked or how clever he’d been, it hadn’t been enough to please the people around him. 

Yet here…

Here with Tobin he felt safe and loved.  He was suddenly seen as a genius (no matter how annoying his mate told him he was).  He was suddenly hailed as successful and as a capable provider for their little family.  Suddenly he was worth something in the eyes of someone who mattered.  He was worthy of being possessed by someone he valued and now…now all he had done was get pregnant and he had become the center of Tobin’s entire universe.  For a man so unused to being revered, it was a humbling feeling.

In some ways, it scared him.

After all, David was not a careful man.  He was prone to cuts and bruises and burns and once or twice he’d even accidentally exposed himself to his own substances.  Sometimes, on his darker days…in his darker times…he’d test his own vaccines on himself without knowing if they were safe or not.  Why should he put someone else in the line of fire when he was a perfectly viable subject? Being as David was NOT a careful man, there was always a risk that he might lose this child that Tobin held so precious already.  What would happen to them if such a tragedy befell them due to David’s own stupidity?

In some hidden corner of the man’s soul, he feared losing this rare, many-splendored affection that he’d mysteriously earned for himself.

These fears only made him feel worse and he set down the pipette he was working with.  His newly-freed hand reached down to run over the fledgling swell of his stomach, almost as if he were trying to comfort the tiny life within.  Any other mother should have been terrified about losing the baby for the baby’s sake, but here he was only thinking about the terrible threat of losing his mate’s love.

Sighing heavily through his nose, David rested his face in his other hand, “Kid, you are already turning my hair gray and you haven’t even hit the second trimester yet.  You planning on making this a habit?”

There wasn’t even a kick or a twitch to answer him.

“You’ve got to be a little girl.  Already giving daddy the silent treatment?”

More silence and still rested against his fingertips.

“…Oh God, please don’t be like my mother,” David groaned.

From the intercom speaker right in front of him, he heard a low static pop and then a buzz as it hummed to life.   Then the voice of his mate resonated through.

“Dave? Hey, I’m back.  I got those cheese straws you wanted.  You in the lab, babe?”

David was silent for a minute as he soaked up that voice.  He let the rough consonants and uncultured vowels wash over his ears.  Sure, his mate still sounded like a rough, unpleasant ghetto-boy, but to David? To David there was no better sound in the entire world.

He let the corners of his lips curl up before he answered his much younger mate, “…Yeah.  Give me a minute to tuck these samples away and I’ll be right with you.”

“You got ten minutes,” Tobin said, well aware of his penchant for losing track of time.

The scientist levered himself up out of his chair and immediately worked on tidying away his work.  His mate might be more than a decade younger than him, but he didn’t argue with Tobin.  Once he had everything tucked away in its place, he made his way up the stairs and entered the code to open the door, then lock it behind him.  He still wasn’t quite ready to show his secret lair to Tobin yet.  Sure, it warmed him from the inside out that his mate loved him nearly unconditionally, but he still harboured a little bit of fear that it just wouldn’t be good enough in the end.  He just…wasn’t ready yet.

The minute he hit the open air of the rest of the house he was met with the rich scent of the bakery-fresh cheese straws Tobin knew he’d been craving lately.  His dark thoughts from the lab seemed to evaporate into the air with the scent of the savoury cheese.  The baby would be fine and he wouldn’t fuck this new life of theirs up because he wasn’t playing the lone wolf anymore.  Young as he was, Tobin was there.  Tobin wouldn’t let him mess it up.

Everything would be just fine.


	2. Tobin

The Idle Hours  
Chapter 2: Tobin

Nothing gratified Tobin more than providing for his Alpha.  He knew the roles were supposed to be reversed instinctually, but he just didn’t give a flying fuck.  Never had.

The blonde Omega was sitting at the kitchen table, leaning back in a loose-limbed sprawl in one of their dining room chairs.  He was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt he’d gone out to get his mate’s baked goods in, but he’d toed off his shoes at the door.  It felt better to get to stretch his toes out as he liked.  Currently, he was sitting in their warm dining room just watching as David laid in to the greasy cheese straws he’d brought back for him.

It put something warm into him.

It was so hard to get David to remember to eat.  He was still trying to live his life like he did before Tobin had accidentally knocked him up and it TERRIFIED his mate.  If they didn’t have Bianka around during the days he was sure he’d be a nervous wreck.  David was a rambunctious man still and Tobin, still as laid back in the home as ever, wasn’t sure he could keep up with him.  He still dreaded the idea of the inventor collapsing down in his lab away from the intercom system where no one would know for hours.  It put his back up…made him nervous. 

He looked up sharply when David mumbled around a mouthful, “Getting you a driver’s license was the best idea EVER.”

“Only ‘cause you know Bi wouldn’t run all over the fuckin’ town whenever you got one of your weird-ass cravings,” Tobin griped, unwilling to be so honest about how very little it actually bothered him.

David knew anyway.

His only response was to shove another cheese straw in his mouth and hold a finger up at his mate, “Language.”

“She can’t hear yet,” Tobin scoffed openly at his ridiculous mate.

“Don’t make me throw science at you,” the Alpha threatened, sucking some cheese off of a finger.

Tobin steered the subject, “How you feelin’? Not been spendin’ too much time down in the lab?”

It earned him a dismissive wave from the other man, “No, Benny, I cross my heart.  I’ve been strictly regimenting all of my sessions down in the lab that I may not taint my poor, weak constitution.”

“That ain’t what I’m tryin’ to say and you know it,” Tobin sighed, standing to crack his back.

David just grinned at him, “I knew you understood it when I talked.”

The svelte, yet intimidating Omega stalked over to his mate and leaned down to kiss him, fierce and full of the annoyed affection that only they seemed to have mastered.

“Shut up, baby.”

~~~

Night sat heavy over the Gray-Lewis household.  Tuck was sequestered away in his room after a full evening of toys and playing and arts and crafts, fully tired out and peaceful.  Bianka had gone back to her home for the night and a hush had fallen over her domain.  Tobin and David were in bed in their shared room, but truth be told only one of them was sleeping.

The dark-haired Alpha was curled up on his side in bed, enjoying the position while he was still capable of achieving it (since those days were rapidly slipping away).  He let out little puffing breaths that weren’t quite snores every so often, proof that he was deeply, comfortably asleep.  His body was warm and pliant with languor, smelling spicy from his body wash and radiating relaxation.  It was the only time that manic energy he powered through every day with evaporated into the air.  It was a bittersweet time for Tobin to look at him because for once he finally looked truly peaceful…but he also looked his age for once.

It made Tobin feel so very young and unprepared.

It reminded him that his mate was in his 30s (or so) and he was only 17 still.  During the day David acted like he was far below his real age and Tobin behaved like he was far older than his own so they met in the middle somewhere, somehow.  The Omega felt like he was actually capable of providing for the first man to ever show him real love and respect during the day but at night…at night he just started to feel unspeakably small and alone.  He didn’t feel very capable anymore.

The blonde Omega in question was sitting up in the bed, his head tipped back against the headboard.  He didn’t dare get out of bed because David had a devilishly good ability to sense any minute change of heat in their shared bed, but he still couldn’t sleep.  The teenager just stared up at the ceiling, finding patterns where none necessarily existed just to give himself something to do.  These were the small hours when his many, many insecurities always came creeping in, when the doubts slithered out from the shadows lurking at the corners of his psyche.

These were the times when his heart locked up and he felt the old chill creeping down his spine.  He’d become familiar with the feeling when he used to lie awake at night wondering where his little brother’s next meal was coming from.  It was the choking terror he knew when he felt that he was treading on a glass tightrope, every step ahead fragile and every step behind crumbling, leaving him with no exit.

He’d taken care of his little brother for seven years when he’d had no resources and he’d done fine, but that was different, wasn’t it? He hadn’t chosen to make Tuck, only to care for him.  This baby he’d put into his mate? That was another story completely. There was a crushing weight of responsibility that came with this.  If something had gone wrong with Tuck, there was always Dora to blame once upon a time, but if he failed his mate…if he failed this child…it wasn’t on anyone but him.

Tobin rubbed his chest as the crushing fear that he might one day become his mother slammed into him with the force of a freight train.

Or worse yet…his father.

The Omega had never known his father.  What if the man had been an absolute dog? What if Tobin would turn out the same? What if, in the end, he just wasn’t enough for the Alpha who had put nearly absolute trust in him?

Tobin shivered a little, then nearly jumped out of his skin when a big, rough, calloused hand wrapped around his knee under the quilt.

David spoke in a sleep-rough husk, “Benny…you’re thinking very loud and some of us are trying to sleep.”

The Omega looked down at his mate and found the older man looking up at him with a muddled expression full of warmth and support.  The corners of his eyes crinkled just slightly with amusement and the affection in that expression chased away the shadows.  Slowly, Tobin slipped down under the blankets and dropped an arm over the other man’s expanding waist.

“Everything okay now, Benny?” David asked, rubbing his well-trimmed beard against Tobin’s collarbone.

Tobin buried his nose in the Alpha’s hair and sighed, feeling more at peace.

“Yeah.  Yeah, it is.”


End file.
